Competition to Benefit Hurricane Sandy–Affected Areas

 WASHINGTON — U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, who also chairs the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Taskforce, launched the Rebuild by Design multi-stage regional design competition on June 20 and is accepting entries until July 19. The competition is hoping to attract world-class architects that will develop projects for the small coastal towns of New Jersey to lower Manhattan, which were affected the most by Hurricane Sandy last year.

Proposals will be analyzed in the fall and then developed between November and February. The winning designs and projects will be constructed in March, using a combination of private and public funds, including portions from the $16 billion given to HUD Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery earlier this year by Congress.

Rebuild by Design will focus on four areas: coastal communities, high-density urban environments, ecological networks and a fourth, more open-ended category that includes innovative questions and proposals. The designs will likely range in scope and scale from large-scale infrastructure to small-scale residential resiliency retrofits.

To ensure better preparation for future natural disasters, the competition will also focus on developing broader building solutions for the specific region. This will mean providing a better understanding of how infrastructure, ecological, climate and economic systems work together in the region.

The competition will take place in four stages:

• Stage 1 (June 2013 – July 2013): The competition calls for concept proposals and a selection of five to 10 teams with expertise in infrastructure engineering, landscape design, urban design, architecture, land use planning, industrial design, communication and other fields.

• Stage 2 (August 2013 – October 2013): Teams will conduct an analysis of the region through a collaborative process and develop a comprehensive understanding of the region, its interdependencies, key players and areas that warrant integrated design thinking and solutions.

• Stage 3 (November 2013 – February 2014): Teams will develop design solutions, and a jury will select the winning ideas to be used in key projects.

• Stage 4 (Begins March 2014): Construction on the winning design projects will begin after close collaboration with government and stakeholders, and will be implemented using public and private funds.

In March, Donovan also made strides to create more disaster prevention strategies and green developments in flooding-prone areas by signing the Memorandum of Understanding with Netherlands’ Minster of Infrastructure and the Environment Melanie Schultz van Haegen. The memorandum stated that the two countries would work more closely together on issues related to disaster mitigation, sustainable and integrated planning, and water management infrastructure.